Why not to use Vonage

AbsoluteZero

I'm thinking of buying 2 months of Vonage VOIP telephone service for my mom for her b-day.

I've heard all the reasons why Vonage is good.

Now I need to know everything bad about the service. What is crappy about Vonage?

Kewop Decam

correct me if I am wrong, but you have to buy some equipment that's like $100 or around that area. Other than that... I've heard nothing but good stuff.

Alpine

911 service isn't 100%, don't ditch the land line.

AbsoluteZero

Kewop Decam wrote:

correct me if I am wrong, but you have to buy some equipment that's like $100 or around that area. Other than that... I've heard nothing but good stuff.

You get an adapter for free that allows you to use your existing telephones. You can always buy a brand new VOIP phone and use that if you wanted and those run up near 100 bucks or more, but there's really no point to that.

I really want to know about the quality of the service. Does it work consistently 24hrs a day? What is the call quality like? Any dropped calls?

exoplasm

It's only going to be as good as your internet connection is.

ArbitraryDescriptor

Alpine wrote:

911 service isn't 100%, don't ditch the land line.

This has been the only snag in the whole VioP game for me.

From what I understand, you can still get all the help you need, you just need to talk to the operator a lot more. IE They can't trace your call so they don't know where you are, they might have to transfer you; etc. Most of the time, that would be just as good, but: what if.

Its 911, it might be your last line of defense, 90% may not be good enough.

Oh, that and no local numbers available yet. Free long distance for me, yes; but not anyone else who wants to call me.

Pheezer

Okay, here's what happens. There's a big thunderstorm/snow storm/tornado in your neighbourhood and your Internet connection gets fucked up. But not a lot, not so much that everyone loses connection. The lines are damaged though, and you're getting heavy packet loss. So you call up tech support and say "Hi my Internet is fucked so my phone doesn't work right" and they hear "i-muh-ern-s-uck-oh-i-o-STATIC-t" and they say "Hey, we need you to call back when your phones are working because we can't understand a damned thing you're saying" and you hear pretty much the same thing they heard, so you get frustrated and try speaking loudly and slowly because for some reason you assume that's gonna do the trick and about four words in you get hung up on.

Now okay, imagine the people you're calling aren't your Internet provider, but 911 because your mom/brother/dog is having a heart attack. See now this is a much less entertaining situation but still well within the realm of possibility. And no, neither Vonage nor your Internet provider will be liable in the slightest.

If you're going to switch to VOIP via Vonage or any other provider, have another phone handy at all times. One that doesn't rely on the Internet. Because Internet companies are NOT required to provide reliable connectivity, and the only thing you can get if you lose access to phones for three days and your house burns down because you couldn't call 911 is a pro-rated refund for 3 days of Internet service, which should be about $4.

AbsoluteZero

The 911 thing isn't an issue. Where I live if you drop your phone service, you can still keep a phone connected to the line and dialing 911 still works though nothing else does. So we can easily keep a backup emergency line.

Would 512mb/s down 324mb/s up be fast enough? She's got digital cable so I think she's got at least that.

Whats this no local calling stuff? According to the Vonage website local people can still call you for free. I think you just can't call them for free (it eats up minutes).

Pheezer

AbsoluteZero wrote:

The 911 thing isn't an issue. Where I live if you drop your phone service, you can still keep a phone connected to the line and dialing 911 still works though nothing else does. So we can easily keep a backup emergency line.

Would 512mb/s down 324mb/s up be fast enough? She's got digital cable so I think she's got at least that.

Whats this no local calling stuff? According to the Vonage website local people can still call you for free. I think you just can't call them for free (it eats up minutes).

I'm pretty sure you meant to type kb there and not mb because my hard drive doesn't have a transfer rate that high.

AbsoluteZero

pheezer FD wrote:

AbsoluteZero wrote:

The 911 thing isn't an issue. Where I live if you drop your phone service, you can still keep a phone connected to the line and dialing 911 still works though nothing else does. So we can easily keep a backup emergency line.

Would 512mb/s down 324mb/s up be fast enough? She's got digital cable so I think she's got at least that.

Whats this no local calling stuff? According to the Vonage website local people can still call you for free. I think you just can't call them for free (it eats up minutes).

I'm pretty sure you meant to type kb there and not mb because my hard drive doesn't have a transfer rate that high.

Quite. My bad.

Pheezer

I would guess then that she'd probably be fine. If her PC has a mic, get her to install Skype, and have a conversation with you over that. It's hardly scientific, but if Skype works fine, I'd assume Vonage probably would too.

exoplasm

Re: 911 service

It is required by law (federal I think?) for telcos to provide 911 service to any land line wether or not there is an active account/service.

That is why there is ALWAYS a dial tone on a landline, regardless of service.

AbsoluteZero

pheezer FD wrote:

I would guess then that she'd probably be fine. If her PC has a mic, get her to install Skype, and have a conversation with you over that. It's hardly scientific, but if Skype works fine, I'd assume Vonage probably would too.

Good idea! I'll try that.

Nozz

We have VOIP here and sometimes I'll pick up the phone and won't get a dial tone. Pretty rare, but it does happen. Also, it's happened once when ANSWERING the phone. Slightly more annoying. Further, sometimes the phone call will be really really fuzzy, and I'll have to call the person back.

These symptoms are rare, but I've noticed them. Once a week one of these things will crop up, but I live in a house with 4 people so we get a LOT of phone calls. YMMV

SeñorAmor

My old roommate got Vonage when I moved out. On his 6mbit/768kbit RoadRunner line, he sounds like shit. It could be his phone, it could be his computer, it could be Vonage. All I know is the guy is great with technology, so I highly doubt it's anything but Vonage. I call him on his cell, and never his home line.

unilateral

The only thing we have had a problem with is that when I'm home from school, if I download torrents, the phone connection gets real shitty. Other than that, my mom loves vonage.

minor threat

this may not apply to your area, but when i was considering vonage the main deterrent was that i couldn't get a phone number with my area code. i got to pick the area code, but they weren't local for me. i ended up going with insight digital phone service and dropped it after a month. the quality was mediocre at best and it had this annoying habit of clipping the first seconds off in a sentence. i'd say "hi, how are you?" and they'd hear "-ow are you?"

it was awesome. i don't know if vonage is the same way, but it's something to be wary of.

AbsoluteZero

minor threat wrote:

this may not apply to your area, but when i was considering vonage the main deterrent was that i couldn't get a phone number with my area code. i got to pick the area code, but they weren't local for me. i ended up going with insight digital phone service and dropped it after a month. the quality was mediocre at best and it had this annoying habit of clipping the first seconds off in a sentence. i'd say "hi, how are you?" and they'd hear "-ow are you?"

it was awesome. i don't know if vonage is the same way, but it's something to be wary of.

Yeah I just found out that I can't get a local area code either. Quite lame.